


A World Without You

by ItFeelsLikeHome



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff, Insecurity, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 01:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10889244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItFeelsLikeHome/pseuds/ItFeelsLikeHome
Summary: Aaron wakes up from a nightmare in which Robert Sugden never existed.





	A World Without You

Sometimes it was the melodic dawn chorus. Other times it was a rather full bladder after they’d had one pint too many. It could even be down to the light flooding into the room that cast its heavenly light across Robert’s face, highlighting his chiseled good looks, illuminating his blond hair. Either way the different scenarios all ended up with the same outcome: Aaron would marvel at Robert. Really marvel at him, trace every outline of Robert’s face with his eyes - the curve and pout of his lips, the mole near his left sideburn and even the jagged angles of his jaw and chin - and drink in the image of him like Aaron was some woebegone, parched traveller and the sight of Robert quenched his thirst. 

That morning it had been a strange dream. Well, actually, a nightmare, if Aaron was going to be realistic. A nightmare in which he had been kicked and pushed into a world where Robert didn’t exist. Everybody had gone on with their existence: happy and somewhat calm and serene. He was the only one that seemed to be affected. And it was that searing gut-piercing, heart-wrenching feeling that was a constant throughout the whole of the frightening ordeal. As he entered every place that had a starring role in this nightmare, he’d expected to see Robert smiling at him - to be there and be with him. He’d searched the portacabin, the pub, the backroom, even Home Farm thinking his unconscious state had transported them back to the days when they weren’t even lovers or boyfriends. But he was gone. Missing. 

Instead, other men were interested in being with Aaron romantically and sexually. This nightmare was filled with them. Tall, short, fat, thin, blond, brunettes. He wasn’t interested in any of them. None of them mattered. None of them were the one thing that he had wanted for so long, that he forgot that there had been a time before. 

Robert. 

It had always been about Robert. It would always be about Robert. 

Alpha and Omega. 

Two halves that made a whole. 

He never realised that he was missing something until Robert came into his life, which is why this nightmare seemed to unsettle him even more. His unconscious self had even tried calling Robert, wondering why he hadn’t contacted Aaron. He thought perhaps in this reality they had just broken up. But when he had retrieved his phone from his pocket, skipping through the contacts just so he could hear his husband’s sexy voice like it was a drug and he needed his next fix, there was no R contacts in his phone book. His heart felt like a flat pancake and it seemed to lack any beat or rhythm. In fact, his contacts ended at Paddy. His wallpaper was a picture of him and Liv. Not the picture of him and Robert from their wedding day: his favourite one that his mum had sneakily snapped when Aaron was insisting he was just standing and not dancing. All evidence of Robert had seemed to have vanished. And in turn part of Aaron had been severed apart and yanked away. 

Not seeing the familiar curve and plumpness of ‘Robert’ in his phone book, or his broad grinning face looking back up at Aaron, was disconcerting, but so was the way he had asked dream Victoria, ‘Have you seen Robert anywhere?’

‘Who’s Robert?’ she had asked, a nonplussed expression on her face. 

He asked Diane, ‘Where’s Robert?’

Her answer had been the same. 

‘Mum, where’s Robert gone to?’

‘Is he a new man in your life?’ had been her answer. 

Surely, Liv must know who Robert was. 

‘You’re speaking of Robert again,’ she had said looking up from the television which seemed to be vying for her attention over Aaron. 

That had given him hope. 

‘Again?’

‘Yeah, you asked me about him about a month ago.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yeah. Have you forgotten, silly?’

‘So who is Robert?’

‘I don’t actually know.’

With each sickening and stomach-lacerating answer, Aaron’s limbs were being weighed down like a lead pipe until he struggled to actually move. The lead was now flooding into his veins and filling up his heart. He shivered, even though it was 20 degrees out and the sun was blazing down letting its rays peek into every corner of Emmerdale. 

The very prospect of a world without Robert had jolted him out of his nightmare, and his eyes had popped open wide and alert. He took in a sigh of relief as he noticed the familiar walls of their bedroom at the Woolpack in darkness. Making sure that this world included a Robert, he turned in bed and was met with Robert’s handsome sleeping face and bare shoulders lying next to him. 

He hadn’t realised how coiled up all his muscles were, but they seemed to unwind at the fact that Robert was asleep in bed with him. A wave of love washed across his body for his husband. It seemed to dispel the last remnants of the nightmare, but Aaron knew that the niggling feeling of losing Robert someday would always be there. He knew the nightmare had been his insecurities taking over his dream landscape. Perhaps that was something to discuss with his counsellor in his next meeting.

‘You’re staring again,’ Robert muttered, still half asleep - mind firmly awake but body unwilling to move while his eyes were still closed shut. 

‘Sorry, it’s becoming a habit.’

‘Bad dream?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You want to talk about it?’

‘You didn’t exist. It was awful.’ A tsunami of tears welled to the surface. One slid down Aaron’s face. He took in a deep breath to steady himself because he knew the rest of them would fall uncontrollably, if he didn’t try to stop them. 

‘I’m not going anywhere. Ever.’ Robert, opening his eyes, brushed away one of Aaron’s tears that was rolling down his cheek. Moving towards each other, their legs entwined with Robert’s cold legs and feet seeking the warmth of Aaron’s. Robert’s hands then grazed Aaron’s waist and rested there in the grooves that they had grown accustomed to over the course of their relationship. 

‘You say that, but we don’t know the future. Anything could happen.’

‘I can’t see my future without you in it.’ The words rolled off Robert’s tongue in such a matter of fact way, but the enormity wasn’t lost on Aaron.

He moved closer to Robert until their lips were touching, grazing, as he delivered one gentle kiss after another with such aplomb when really he wanted to devour Robert in case the nightmare came true. 

‘Good,’ he responded. ‘Because I can’t see mine without you either.’

He then sunk into Robert’s body, revelling in the smell, shape and sensation of it until every part of him was touching his husband and finding comfort in the feeling. It was his favourite place to be and one that he was so scared of losing.


End file.
